Author Gail Gauthier's Reflections On Children's Books, Writing, And The World of Children's Publishing

Friday, August 31, 2012

Gail "Goes" To WriteOnCon

This year's WriteOnCon was held August 14th and 15th. The beauty of this free, on-line, children's writers' conference is that you can still access most of the events. I, for instance, just finished up doing everything I wanted to do this past Monday. Most of the presentations were shorter than you'd see at traditional conferences, which is not a bad thing. There were a lot of newish agents and some talk of newish things.You can just access the full schedule and pick and choose what you want to do.

The Importance of Craft by Molly O'Neill. This is an essay. It was actually the first thing I read/saw at the conference. The significance of craft to writing seems so obvious, but with the explosion of interest in marketing and self-publishing, you can easily get the impression that some people aren't focusing on it.

Plotting With 3 x 5 Cards with Kimberly Griffiths Little. Yeah, she was talking about plotting, too. Both Meyer and Little talked about scenes, something I'm going to pay more attention to in the future during pre-writing/plotting. I actually tried to get started on a new project with index cards a year or so ago, but got diverted into other projects. I'm willing to try this again and see if some variation will work for me.

Building Characters Into Real People with Frank Cole. I stuck with this vlog at first because I was kind of mesmerized by the way Cole rocked by and forth in his chair and seemed to throw his whole body into his talk. In addition to that, though, he did a good job of organizing his presentation by doing an intro in which he told us what he was going to tell us. And, in the body of what was almost like an oral essay, he made some excellent points about characters' ages and the difference between a scenario and a reaction to that scenario.

I also heard or saw some talk of new adult books. This isn't a particularly new concept. I've been hearing things about a specific category for books marketed for readers in their late teens/early twenties for a number of years. I have a feeling after what I saw at WriteOnCon that perhaps there has been some movement in that area.

Okay, now I have had a chance to share my WriteOnCon experience, and after transferring a few notes to my journal, I can toss my notes, thus clearing my desk. Good job done, Gail!

About Me

I'm the author of eight books for children and young adults, all published by G.P. Putnam's Sons. I've republished Saving the Planet & Stuff as an eBook. Now I have experience wading in both the traditional and self-publishing pools. My essays have been published at The Millions and Literary Mama, and my short stories at Alimentum and Cricket. I have been blogging at Original Content for eleven years.